I was walking my dog yesterday and just coming down the block leading to our door when I noticed a few feathers floating over my head. At first, was just a couple. But then a couple more, and a couple more.

I looked up but didn’t see anything. Where I was standing on the sidewalk, the sun was right in my eyes. So, I walked on.

But then … a couple more feathers drifted by.

This time when I turned around, I saw the bird of prey sitting in a tree not too far away, meticulously plucking feathers from a pigeon. “Ah, it’s you,” I said to myself.

So many things we consider beautiful in our lives, in this world, have some darkness.

I love raptors and birds of prey. I’ve spent hours watching bald eagles. I’ve walked Illinois preserves looking for hawks and owls, and have been amazed more than once by a sharp-shinned hawk swooping into the branches of trees lining my parents’ property, eyeing the squirrels and birds at my mom’s feeders.

But I also know their majesty is matched by their ferociousness.

And though with birds of prey this is the result of instinct and evolution, when I sit and think about most everything I value in my life, all the threads that come together to create the patchwork tapestry I consider my whole person, most of what I hold dear encompasses this same duality.

This idea, to be sure, is not new.

What I continually work on, however, is being able to hold seeming contradictions together. The idea that I can hold the absolute joy I feel in watching a hawk sit on the wind for what seems a physically impossible amount of time alongside the sadness of watching that same bird enjoy a fresh kill.

For me, so much about this moment we are in right now feels saturated with contradiction. What I see and hear is too often opposed to how I want to experience my life and humanity in this world, and I can’t help but wonder sometimes how best to hold true to my own sense of self while navigating a place that does not seem suited for me.

We’ve all been in this space, right? Where everything seems to chafe.

Leaning into contradiction is hard work. It’s uncomfortable, at least for me, to allow for light and dark to coexist, not as separate entities that come and go alone, but as one.

When I’m aware enough, when I’m moving in the world with enough intention (which isn’t always possible!), I can hold much of what seems to be contradictory—love/hate, life/death, for example—together. And I can choose, with purpose, to let the lightness I consciously develop in myself influence the dark.

I know, I know. Sounds like a bunch of bullshit! I get it. I do.

And I want to be clear that I am not advocating you have no boundaries or always look for the positive. For me, that is both unrealistic and unhealthy.

But I am encouraging you to honor your complexity as a human being.

So, my invitation to you today is to think about how you might hold contradiction.

Can you make a little room in your day, everyday, to let everything exist at once, together? All the anxiety, love, hate, stress, joy, lightness, darkness, just there, no judgement.

When I’m able to do that, I can sometimes see how I can show up in this world that doesn’t fit me well right now with more clarity. And maybe you will, too.

The Light Links

Stephen Colbert: Grateful for Grief

How Your Brain Makes You Hold Contradictory Beliefs

Angela Davis on continuing to fight for change

Book Rec: Let This Radicalize You

How to survive being online